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​Getting Started with College Planning
Part 1
When it comes to saving money to pay for a child's college expenses, there are three basic rules:

1. Your retirement security must come first.
2. Start now. Not tomorrow. Now.
3. Begin with the end in mind.

Let's take these three pillars of truth one at a time.
Your own financial and retirement security must come first. Many families make the mistake of sacrificing their own long-term financial well-being for the sake of paying for college. Every spare penny is set aside for college, and they pay little heed to funding their own 401(k)s, IRAs, 403(b)s and taxable long-term savings accounts. Remember that while parental contributions are important, they are not the only resources your child will likely have in college. There are many other possibilities as well:

• Your child may receive scholarships in music, academics, or athletics.
• Your child may receive an ROTC scholarship or attend school via the Post 9/11 GI Bill or whatever variant of the GI Bill exists at that time.
• Your child may decide not to go to college after all, but to start a business, pursue a trade or start a family.
• Your child can earn his or her own money in high school and college.
• Your child may be able to borrow a significant sum of money to attend college.

All these are viable options that help millions of young people pay for their own educations. And none of them will be available to you to fund your retirement. Let's face it: If you don't adequately fund your own retirement, on top of Social Security, nobody is going to help you. Take care of your emergency fund, life insurance, health insurance, long-term care planning and retirement savings plan before you divert resources to college planning.  (to be continued)